The problem is it kind of works. Israeli propagandists describe anyone who opposes Israeli war crimes or anyone that critiques their continued colonization of Palestinians as terrorist sympathizers. Guess what seemingly everyone in media/politics avoid?
Aren't Arabs also "semitic people" [1]? (Since Ishmael and Abraham are also descendants of Shem...). In this case "antisemitic" would also mean "against Arabs"...
You are right, there are Jews who aren't Semites an there are Semites who aren't Jews. The term “anti-Semitism” came up near the end of the 19th century [1] when it was all the rage to find scientific-sounding words for whatever you do or sell. “Anti-Semitism” sells better than plain “hatred of Jews”. I for one wouldn't give racists the satisfaction of using their own choice for cloaking their prejudice and stupidity in pseudo-science but the term seems to have taken hold everywhere.
Sometimes words don't mean exactly what their etymology suggests. So I'm sorry but, objecting to using the world 'antisemitism' to refer to "anti-Jewish racism" comes across as trying to deny Jews the ability to describe their own oppression
Hanlon's razor applies: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Many or most people incorrectly assume that anti-Semitism has something to do with Semitic people because the words (but not their meanings) are similar.
Hard disagree. One of these (anti-Semitism) is far more common than the other (references to Arabs as "Semitic"). It's like saying that you've only heard of "negro" as a color. In a culture and a place (the United States) where that is absurd, assumptions of malintent and bad faith are a better heuristic.
I don't mean to imply that the word makes any sense in this context. However, if one chooses to complain about Israeli abuses of Palestinians, it is a fact that one will be called "antisemitic".
The point you bring up is an example of "fallacy of equivocation".
Yes, words are polysemic. In this case, 'anti-semetic' is seen as "anti-jewish". That's one sense of 'anti-semetic'. You can also add another sense of that word: "against speakers of Semetic language or people". This sense is not used when people use 'anti-semetic'.
In Europe, there has been centuries of discussion about jews: it was called "the Jewish question". Anyway, this anti-semitism started as a product of religious rivalry (which religion is True? Christianity or Judaism). Then extra features were added, etc.
Actually, "anti-semitic" is against "jewish" person (as a religion) and not against "israeli" citizen (as a nationality). The last one is called "anti-sionist"...
The fact that Israel is a nation "home for jews" doesn't help, as some people think that every critic against Israel politic is the mark of "anti-semitism" even if religion has nothing to do with. Sometimes it might be the indicator of "anti-sionism" and sometimes... just the indicator of political difference! After all, you can criticize any country for its politic without critizing the counrty "per se"
Moreover, a lot of people in Israel are not jewish but muslims.
"They" being "Israeli propagandists" as referenced in the previous comment.
What you're doing is exactly what we're talking about. Trying to shut down any criticism of the Israeli government as antisemitic bigotry. It's no different than the 50 Cent Army (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Army) dismissing all criticism of the CCP as sinophobia.
Clever. By labeling anyone who alleges antisemitism as an "Israeli propagandist" you can shut down any discussion of antisemitism without having to engage with whether there may be any bigotry or prejudice in play
But seriously, ask yourself if there is any way a Jew could tell you "Hey, what you're saying about Israel is kinda racist because XYZ" without you immediately dismissing them. (And maybe there is! I haven't gotten to know you in real life)
The opposite is a much more common occurrence. By reflexively labeling any criticism of Israel as "antisemitic", people shut down discussion without having to engage in the topics of settler colonialism or apartheid.
Frankly, this is one of the more frustrating aspects of my experience as a diaspora Jew: having to constantly point out that Israel != Jews in response to people who want to exploit my religious identity for their own ends.
> people shut down discussion without having to engage in the topics of settler colonialism or apartheid
The apartheid bit can and should be engaged and eventually solved with a Palestinian state beside Israel. The settelr colonialist bit is mostly said to try and ruin the Zionist state by dismantling Zionism. No one calls the U.S a settler colonialist country. No one demands California to be returned to Mexico (it's rightful owner btw) or that the Indians get the right to their lands back (so what if not many of them are left? if we wanna dismantle colonialism let's start with it's founders).
These are requirements specific to Israel. The hard left knows very well the chances of "one democratic state" surviving are close to zero, and that the endgame is immigration of most Jews out of Palestine, to become hated refugees everywhere they go yet again. But that's the hard left's plan, and not everyone like to engage with that.
People do talk about all of those things though? Israel and the US are both settler colonial states. Acknowledging that should be the start of a conversation about righting historical wrongs, not shorthand for a proscribed solution.
As a side note, it seems like you're using "hard left" as a smear, but most of the people I follow who engage on this topic are diaspora Jews who very much do not want to become "hated refugees".
> but most of the people I follow who engage on this topic are diaspora Jews who very much do not want to become "hated refugees
There are a lot of super progressive Jews out there that are vocal about Zionism needing to end. Sometimes it's ideological and sometimes it's just wanting to fit in within progressive circles and feeling good about oneself. I mean if Israel is a child killing apartheid state who in their right mind would want to be associated with it?
Many of them aren't really comfortable with the idea of being Jewish in general (definitely not in public), and they have a good reason since anti-semtiism is still alive even in the U.S, especially in progressive circles. Also, religion and progressiveness don't generally agree that well. They definitely won't be able to fit in progressive circles and say that Israel has a right to exist, it barely works now. Bernie Sanders is struggling with his Zionism, lots of progressives think he's pretty much a racist.
It's a complicated topic, but we can make a whole discussion about Jewish life in the diaspora and the challenges it brings.
This doesn’t cohere with my experience at all. Many vocal anti-Zionists I know are also vocally Jewish. In fact, I don’t know a single person who is uncomfortable being Jewish in public, and I haven’t seen many progressives calling Bernie Sanders racist (especially with regard to antisemitism). And the right in the US has a far worse antisemitism problem than the left.
> In fact, I don’t know a single person who is uncomfortable being Jewish in public
That sounds like a reach. Many Jews don't want to wear a Kippa anymore fearing anti semitism. That's confirmed in surveys. So for the atheist ones that's not a problem but I'm sure being vocally Jewish isn't that much fun.
I use the term hard left as opposed to center left. We can use progressive.
Its nice and easy to acknowledge things when there are no claims. The Mexicans are not claiming California back and even if they were no one would take that seriously. The Palestinians ARE claiming the land back, and are being supported by growing numbers. So this whole discussion about history becomes very consequential to Israel.
Do we even disagree about the settler colonialism bit? It seems like your hesitance there has to do with a potential conclusion, rather than whether or not that accurately describes the situation.
FWIW, I’m speaking in good faith about that being the start of a conversation about reparations (although not one that I want to have here and now). I’m not trying to go “GOTCHA! now Israelis need to GTFO” as soon as we acknowledge that shared understanding.
I think we disagree, or at least I don't agree fully.
Putting what the Americans or white Australians did with what happened in Israel and saying it's the same thing seems odd to me. It's not the same thing. There are similarities and vast differences.
Also, Arabs themselves are settler colonialists by that definition. They started coming to the region during the Arab/Muslim conquests in the 7th century. No one spoke Arabic in Palestine before that.
> No one calls the U.S a settler colonialist country
What? The US is the ur-example of settler colonialism. We are the end stage, the model for the ultimate fate of the original inhabitants under colonialism: decimated and pushed back into whatever worthless land none of the settlers wanted.
> or that the Indians get the right to their lands back
People do demand that, yes.
Personally, I would love to see Native American tribes given better land than the shitty deserts they've been stuck in, but two wrongs don't make a right; no one has a right to force people off of land they've been living on for decades or centuries just because their ancestors used to live there.
That means the British had no right to unilaterally carve Israel out of Palestine in the first place, and also that Palestine shouldn't get to force Israelis off of land they've been living on for nearly a century, however wrong their ancestors were to take it; nor does Israel have the right to keep taking more Palestinian land to build new Israeli settlements.
There will always be Arabs who won't be satisfied with anything short of total hegemony. They would have a lot less support, resources, and manpower if Israel would treat Palestinians as equals and stop air-striking innocent men, women, and children because they happen to be within the blast radius of a suspected terrorist. Killing innocents to achieve political goals is no better when Israel does it than when Hamas does.
Ok what I mean is no one is seriously asking to decolonise the U.S.
Its easy to want a few Indians get a few more acres. It sounds nice and costs you nothing. But what about settling real claims? Like some tribe wants Manhattan back? Or returning California to Mexico? Thats what Israel is asked to do. To basically destroy itself to fix some past wrong that wasn't really its fault to begin with (we don't have to start this argument but comparing Zionism with what Americans did falls short).
Taking this seriously would require differentiating between the various parties. Absolutely, indigenous Americans should be compensated for the recent theft of their lands. That compensation could take the form of return of land, or if the land's current use makes that impossible then we can print some money like we do for all our stupid wars.
Mexico, however, is also a colonial state. If we compensate them, soon someone will suggest that Spain should get a piece.
I don't know about others, but when I said "Israeli propagandists" I meant literally the Israeli government's official public relations, e.g. the people who did this: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/6/23/my-zionism-isra... I might disagree with random internet posters, but I wouldn't generally call them "propagandists".
> But seriously, ask yourself if there is any way a Jew could tell you "Hey, what you're saying about Israel is kinda racist because XYZ" without you immediately dismissing them.
I'd be willing to listen to their argument. It's gonna depend on what the initial statement was.
There are plenty of people who criticize Israel and are also antisemitic, and they often try to cloak it in reasonable-sounding arguments. That does not mean that all reasonable-sounding arguments against Israeli policies are automatically racist. If someone says "Israel is bombing Palestine again, you know how those Israelis are," that would sound like it could be a dog whistle. If someone says "Israel is bombing Palestine again, they're just perpetuating the cycle of violence," that seems reasonable enough--but I have seen more than a few people who would call even that antisemitic.
> Guess what seemingly everyone in media/politics avoid?
Would you be referring to the most-discussed conflict of all time? It's always funny to me when I hear on Reddit that "nobody talks" about Israeli war crimes. We're talking about it right now. Go look at Wikipedia's page of active conflicts - how many of them do you hear about the war crimes being committed? Coverage of Israeli war crimes is disproportionately *large* compared to other conflicts, not disproportionately small.
So just to be clear, your response to the criticism that 'Israeli propagandists describe anyone who opposes Israeli war crimes or anyone that critiques their continued colonization of Palestinians as terrorist sympathizers'... is to label anyone criticising those Israeli propagandists a terrorist sympathizer?
No, plenty of critics aren't terrorist sympathizers. Some critics are openly sympathetic to Hamas and Co.
Barring any context to the contrary, I'm naturally going to assume anyone complaining about being accused of being a terrorist sympathizer as belonging to the latter group. (It seems easy enough to clear up confusion by just saying "I oppose Hamas")
> Guess what seemingly everyone in media/politics avoid?
We discussed the other day as well. We clearly live in different realities which might explain why we couldn't come to an agreement.
For the reference here is what my reality looks like:
Around here there are exactly two major outlets that I am aware of that is pro Israel: "MIFF - Med Israel For Fred" (With Israel For Peace) and the conservative newspaper document.no.
The rest of known media outlets are more or less deeply anti-Israeli:
Public broadcaster NRK is probably the biggest hatemongerer (publishing "funny" skits about "jewish swines", telling that Israeli soldiers "shoots at everything that moves", having a radio host saying on air (yes, on air) that he hope the vaccine doesn't work on them and they die from COVID etc.)
On the other side you have vg.no who will always end their pieces about Israelis bombing something with a sentence or two to balance it somewhat: "The Israeli attack happened after n hundred rockets had been fired over the border the last 24 hours."
The rest falls somewhere in the middle: not calling Israelis Jewish Swines like NRK but simultaneously only reporting whenever Israel strikes back, completely ignoring why.
I have the same observations as you from Norway. From what I hear from those who have been here longer than me it has been like this since the 60ies or 70ies so it is not a new thing either.
> > Israel is written about, almost always negatively, on a daily basis on all major newspapers
You could say that about the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) as well or the dictators in Saudi Arabia. Sometimes there's a well founded reason for criticizing the state in a country.
That does not mean the ones who criticize the Israeli state or the CCP, would think that everyone in Israel or China are bad people.
P:
> same observations as you
There's a cognitive bias to notice negative sounding things written about one's own "soccer team", but not notice positive or neutral things so much.
Let's say there's 1 article about settlers taking land, 1 about the Israeli state selling suicide bomber drones to Azerbaijan, and 15 articles about vaccination, tech companies, the Pride Parade, other things -- maybe you wouldn't remember the 15 latter, only keep the 1 + 1 former in mind.
(This is as expected b.t.w. thinking about evolution and hunter gatherer tribes long ago)
> Let's say there's 2 articles about settlers taking land, and 10 articles about startups and tech companies in Israe
I'm talking about almost every news outlet writing "Israel bombed Gaza" and only one being nuanced enough to mention "Israel bombed Gaza after n hundred rockets crossed the border during the last 24 hours."
Settlers taking land is also interesting. It took quite a while before someone (and none of the big ones) cared to mention that the latest dispute was over Jewish owned land that was stolen by Jordan during their short management of east Jerusalem and sold to Arabs.
> I'm talking about almost every news outlet writing "Israel bombed Gaza" and only one being nuanced enough to mention "Israel bombed Gaza after n hundred rockets crossed the border during the last 24 hours."
It goes both ways. I haven't seen the headline "Palestinian militias shell Israeli targets in response to Israel's attempts to ethnically cleanse illegally occupied Palestinian territory" either.
> It took quite a while before someone (and none of the big ones) cared to mention that the latest dispute was over Jewish owned land that was stolen by Jordan during their short management of east Jerusalem and sold to Arabs.
Has anyone of them mentioned the massive irony in Israel returning lands stolen from Jews while at the same time keeping all the land it itself stole from Palestinians?
> Has anyone of them mentioned the massive irony in Israel returning lands stolen from Jews while at the same time keeping all the land it itself stole from Palestinians?
To the degree that land has been stolen recently except by Jordan it was by UN and the British I think.
Israeli land was either bought, traded, given by UN, won in defensive wars (and most of that have been given back in return for peace).
You could say that the land that was gained in defensive wars is stolen even if it was a defensive war, but I think that becomes unreasonable - especially since Israel has proven that they are willing to give back such land for a real, lasting peace agreement, and also since some of the land represents a massive advantage for a hostile neighbor.
During the 1948 Palestine war, Jewish troops ethnically cleansed the territory that became the State of Israel of Arab Palestinians. The land and property owned by those Arab Palestinians was confiscated by the state and handed out to Jewish immigrants. Israel does not believe that any of the land or property it confiscated should be returned to its former Arab Palestinian owners.
At the same time, property owned by Jews in the West Bank was confiscated by Jordanian authorities and given to Arab Palestinian refugees. In 1970, three years after Israel had taken the West Bank from Jordan, it enacted a law which stated that all property confiscated by Jordan should be returned to their original Jewish owners.
This is what I meant by "massive irony" but maybe it is just hypocrisy or racism.
> During the 1948 Palestine war, Jewish troops ethnically cleansed the territory that became the State of Israel of Arab Palestinians. The land and property owned by those Arab Palestinians was confiscated by the state and handed out to Jewish immigrants.
And this is why there is so many Arabs living happily in Israel today. /s
Quite on the contrary I've read that Israel asked Arabs to stay in Israel during the 1948 war - for selfish reasons - but still.
Surrounding Arab countries asked Arabs in Israel to leave temporarily to make "shoveling the Jews into the ocean" easier. Those who left "temporarily" are the ancestors of those who live in refugee camps today. Those who stayed are the ancestors of Arabs living good lives in Israel today. More or less.
edit: Confiscating the homes of those who left to make it simpler to wipe you into the sea is a bit different than bulk killing people (genocide) and taking their homes. endedit.
Also remember that far more Jews were forced out of surrounding countries and into Israel than Arabs out of Israel.
If Arabs from what is today Israel should get their homes back I suppose Jews should get their homes and shops back in Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq etc?
edit: Or can we finally accept that it was botched by UN and actively sabotaged by neigbouring countries? That the sad fate of the Arabs from Israel is less the fault of Israelis and that the ones to blame are neighbor Arab states and the UN? end edit
If any of this is news to anyone just think how much more biased news organizations hide from you.
Everyone should start reading.
PS: I'm not saying Israelis are innocent. I'm saying that media has massively misrepresented the situation for a few decades, selectively presented only the things that makes Israel look bad.
Many of them are true, but as shown above the full story is a bit more nuanced...
After the war the international community pressured Israel into letting the Palestinian refugees return home. The famous UN Resolution 194 was an attempt to settle the Palestine question and to demand of Israel that it let the refugees repatriate. But the racist Israeli leaders didn't want non-Jews in their state. "Only Jews have a right of return to Israel", Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declared.
To shield itself from criticism, Israel promulgated the idea that the Arabs left voluntarily. That they had been "called out" by their own leaders. Joseph Schechtman, working for the Israeli state, was the first to claim this in his book The Arab refugee problem from 1952. He referenced radio broadcasts and evacuation orders from Arab community leaders ostensibly calling for them leave.
Erskine Childers in his classic article The Other Exodus from 1963 went through transcripts of radio broadcasts in Palestine during 1948 and couldn't find a single instance of an order by Arab leaders calling for them to leave. Arab leaders that he interviewed vehemently denied calling for the Arabs to leave. On the contrary, he found transcripts of radio broadcasts calling for the Arabs to stay. Since then, many historians have investigated the issue and have concluded that the "called out"-theory is completely bunk.
Despite the overwhelming evidence showing that the Palestinians left for fear of getting caught in the hostilities, were "adviced" to leave by Jewish troops, or forced out at gunpoint, some Zionists still cling to the debunked "called out"-theory. That's the power of propaganda, I guess.
I find it callous and cynical to attempt to justify Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine with Jewish emigration from Arab countries in the 1950s and 1960s. That the Arab countries persecuted their Jewish minorities cannot justify an ethnic cleansing committed decades prior. Furthermore, some Arab states have apologized for their persecution of Jews and allowed them to return and to claim property. No such apology is forthcoming from the Israeli state.
> But the racist Israeli leaders didn't want non-Jews in their state
Is it solely about racism, really? You're talking as if there weren't around 50 years of mutual blood shedding before that moment, or that all surrounding Arab states didn't invade Israel to destroy it. The Jews had a good reason not to trust Palestinian intentions towards them (See the Grand Mufhti's meetings with Hitler to help find a "solution" to the Jewish problem for example).
In fact the Palestinians refused to split the land twice, on 1937 and again on 1947 and then they started a war, what good would it have done to let them back - to have another civil war all over again?
Yes, the Jewish Zionist leaders were racist in the sense that they wanted as many of one race - white Jews - in their state, while they wanted as few of any other race. The British had promised them a "national home" in Palestine in 1917 and subsequently they drew up plans for dealing with the Arab population. The number of Jews wishing to immigrate to Palestine ("return" in Zionist parlance) was far fewer than what they had expected so to build a Jewish majority they decided that the territory of the Jewish state had to be cleansed of Arabs. The Zionists in Palestine's leader, David Ben-Gurion, on countless occasions expressed his support for ethnic cleansing. For example, in 1937 he wrote to his son: "We must expel the Arabs and take their places."
Even after the war Israeli leaders attempted to cleanse the land of its remaining Arab population. JNF chairman Yosef Weitz in 1951 proposed that the Christian Arabs from the upper Galilee should be transferred to Argentina. Both Ben-Gurion and Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett gave the plan its blessing.
None of the Zionist leaders ever suggested that the need to ethnically cleanse the land of non-Jews was due to Arab belligerency. On the contrary, they were quite clear on that Arab belligerency was not an issue. While there were many more Arabs than Jews in Palestine, they were poorly organized, poorly trained, and lacked access to military equipment.
Yes, it is correct that the Palestinians wanted to keep Palestine as one territorial unit. Dividing it would have meant that hundreds of thousands of Arab from the Jewish part would have been transferred out of their homeland and their property would have been confiscated. Instead, they wanted to create an all-encompassing Palestinian state with a parliament in which all ethnic groups were represented. This idea was a complete non-starter for the Zionists who wanted a Jewish-majority state.
It is good when talking about the problems on one side not to completely leave out the problems at the other side.
Here are some:
> Until the Arab armies invaded Israel on the very day of its birth, May 15, 1948, no quarter whatsoever had ever been given to a Jew who fell into Arab hands. Wounded and dead alike were mutilated. Every member of the Jewish community was regarded as an enemy to be mercilessly destroyed....
> [T]he Arab population of Palestine anticipated nothing less than massacres in retaliation if the Jews were victorious. Measuring the Jewish reaction by their own standards, they simply could not imagine that the Jews would not reply in kind what they had suffered at Arab hands. And this fear played a significant role in the Arab flight.[112]
It is also worth mentioning that despite what David Ben-Gurion meant, Israels Proclamation of Independence, issued on May 14, 1948, invited the Palestinians to remain in their homes and become equal citizens in the new state.
It might also be worth mentioning that Israel even offered Arabs to return or to buy them out since.
It might also be worth mentioning that while Israeli citizens massacred (some nasty examples exist) this was not encouraged, and perpetrators could be threatened with harsh punishments instead of celebrations like on the other side.
The story goes on.
Israel is not blameless, but the way you present it it is evil powerful Israel relentlessly attacking poor Arabs.
I enjoy (for the lack of a better word, I find it disgusting to read about) learning more including were Israel was wrong, but at the same time, wherever I look it is obvious that while the things you say are correct, you systematically leave out the other side.
(And now that I think of it I might be guilty of the same, even if it is to a lesser degree.)
First of all, Wikipedia is not a great source for this topic. It's a simple fact that many more Zionists edit Wikipedia than pro-Palestinians and its coverage is therefore often slanted. Instead, consult books written by historians on the subject. Some good ones are The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, and All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948.
The quotes you cite are from Joseph Schechtman and Rony Gabbay, two historians who were employed by the Israeli state to "chronicle its history". Schechtman, as I mentioned, is the one who promulgated the idea that the Arabs were "called out" by their own commanders. If you want to know what actually happened, you need to consult modern scholarly works on the subject - not books written for propaganda purposes.
It is true that many Arabs fled because they were afraid of the Jewish violence. Dozens of massacres were committed in the course of the war, some of which to punish Arabs who refused to obey evacuation orders. Most of these massacres have been hushed down so unless you are a specialist you probably haven't heard of them. The Israeli state even closed its archives of the 1948 war because the documents historians found were just too embarrassing. The most infamous massacre was the Deir Yassin massacre for which news stated that the Jews had killed some 250 villagers. This was not true - the Jews had only killed about 110 villages - but the news of the massacre caused many Arab civilians to panic. For what it's worth, Deir Yassin's village elders had signed an agreement with the Jews to stay out of the fighting. This agreement was violated by the Jews who captured it in a sneak attack on April 9, 1948 - over a month before the Zionists proclaimed their state and the Arab states intervened.
So, yes, it is true that fear played a role in the refugee flight. Civilians usually try to get away from war zones. The main driver of the refugee flight, however, was military operations by Jewish forces.
According to a Shin Bet document from June 30, 1948, the most important factor in leading to the refugee flight was direct, hostile Jewish operations against Arab settlements. Abu Sitta in Atlas of Palestine comes to the same conclusion; 54.4% of the villages were abandoned due to military assault by Jewish forces, 24.6% due to direct expulsion orders, and 1% (5) were abandoned due to Arab evacuation orders. You can find details on how and when each Palestinian village was depopulated here: https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/palestineremix/maps-an...
Regarding Ben-Gurion, there are countless instances of him lending support for the idea that the Arabs should be transferred out of the Jewish state. Whatever the Declaration of Independence stated, it was clearly and loudly overruled by military commanders who depopulated Arab villages and then dynamited the houses to prevent the villagers from returning. For example, in one section of Yitzhak Rabin's memoir, he describes how Ben-Gurion wanted him to drive the Palestinians out Lod and Ramle:
"Not even Ben‐Gurion could offer any solution, and during the discussions at operational headquarters, he remained silent, as was his habit in such situations. Clearly, we could not leave Lod's hostile and armed populace in our rear, where it could endanger the supply route to Yiftach, which was advancing eastward."
"We walked outside, Ben‐Gurion accompanying us. Alton repeated his question: ‘What is to be done with the population?’ B.G. waved his hand in a gesture which said, ‘Drive them out!’"
"Allon and I held a consultation. I agreed that it was essential to drive the inhabitants out. We took them on foot towards the Bet Horon Road, assuming that the legion would be obliged to look after them, thereby shouldering logistic difficulties which would burden its fighting capacity, making things easier for us."
"Psychologically, this was one of the most difficult actions we undertook. The population of Lod did not leave willingly. There was no way of avoiding the use of force and warning shots in order to make the inhabitants march the 10 to 15 miles to the point where they met up with the legion."
> It is good when talking about the problems on one side not to completely leave out the problems at the other side.
I don't think I'm leaving anything out. When discussing the Holocaust no one in their right mind would bring up Jewish violence against ethnic Germans because it would be irrelevant. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine was a war crime and made much worse by the Zionist side's justifications and insistence on that the victims of that crime have no right to redress.
I think that I should say to you that even if I fundamentally disagree with you on the root of the problem, I find it very interesting and I actually read what you write with great interest even though (or maybe specifically because) it sometimes shatters some of my previous beliefs.
I cannot defend everything Israelis have done and I probably gave that up somewhere late as a teenager or about the time I was drafted, so half a life ago.
I also believe that I could play your position to some degree if I ever met a crazy Arab hater so there's that.
That said this thread is getting long and old. Thanks for taking time to write so carefully instead of just calling me a shill and moving on. I also hope I have demonstrated that I am not and that I'm willing to try change my position in face of evidence :-)
> Erskine Childers in his classic article The Other Exodus from 1963 went through transcripts of radio broadcasts in Palestine during 1948 and couldn't find a single instance of an order by Arab leaders calling for them to leave.
This is interesting. I'll stop writing that. (Or until I can get proof of it.)
It would be astounding to me if this was true but I also cannot square the idea of a genocide of Arabs within Israeli borders with the fact that there are many more Arabs inside Israel today than before 1948.
I still haven't made up my mknd on this, but here is what I found:
There is a lot of information there but the most interesting (too me at least since it partially contractict my llng beld beliefs) was what I found by following the Wikipedia result one step further to this page:
This page mostly supports bjourne but interestingly is also full of quotes that support what I learned:
> Furthermore, in his comprehensive book on the Arab–Israeli conflict, Righteous Victims, Morris wrote:
>> In some areas Arab commanders ordered the villagers to evacuate to clear the ground for military purposes or to prevent surrender. More than half a dozen villages ... were abandoned during these months as a result of such orders. Elsewhere, in East Jerusalem and in many villages around the country, the [Arab] commanders ordered women, old people, and children to be sent away to be out of harm's way.... [T]he AHC and the Arab League had periodically endorsed such a move when contemplating the future war in Palestine.[174]
> In a 2003 interview with Haaretz, Morris summed up the conclusions of his revised edition of The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem: "In the months of April–May 1948, units of the Haganah were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves. At the same time, it turns out that there was a series of orders issued by the Arab Higher Committee and by the Palestinian intermediate levels to remove children, women and the elderly from the villages."[175]
> The Arab National Committee in Jerusalem, following the 8 March 1948 instructions of the Arab Higher Committee, ordered women, children and the elderly in various parts of Jerusalem to leave their homes and move to areas "far away from the dangers. Any opposition to this order ... is an obstacle to the holy war ... and will hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts."[176]
>>"Settlers taking land is also interesting. It took quite a while before someone (and none of the big ones) cared to mention that the latest dispute was over Jewish owned land that was stolen by Jordan during their short management of east Jerusalem and sold to Arabs. "
I think I remember reading about that. Are those the properties acquired by an extremist Jewish organization, from the original Jewish owners, in order to be able to legally evict the non-Jewish people living there?
